Viva Boston, Viva print

Getting back to non-azn grifting news this week, the Boston Globe is teetering on the precipice right now after the New York Times company threatened to shut the paper if the unions didn’t agree to millions of dollars in concessions. This is surely a strong-arm negotiating tactic to get the union to capitulate, and the company has since backed off that threat for now, but the headline “NY Times to File Notice it Will Close Boston Globe” is still quite jarring to see.

Meanwhile, the NY Times is considering increasing its newstand price to $2, which is fine by me, because The Economist did it successfully (even if it means going after “snob appeal,” if we’ve reached the point in society where reading intelligent articles and attempting to be informed about the world, even if it’s just box scores and movie reviews, is considered “snobbish,” and if that snobbishness is therefore considered a slight or pejorative term against the consumers of such high-end media, and that those consumer should be subject to some sort of derision for this desire to be better informed that separates them from the rest of society, indicating that the general populace or promoters of a snobbishness trope distinguish themselves forcibly from tactile readers of reliable journalism, much like how Barack Obama became the object of ridicule for mentioning that he eats arugula during the campaign, as if people forgot that arugula is a healthy thing to be eating, as if we wanted the person who might lead the free world to be filling his body with cheese puffs and Hawaiian meatloaf sandwiches, ignoring the risks to heart disease obesity and diabetes any intelligent person should know about to protect their health because they are well read and comprehending of the world around them, which apparently we have reached). I pick up the Globe whenever I’m in town and it never disappoints to have at least a few items of weighty, thick journalism that still warrant its role as the leading paper for all of New England.

It seems like the appropriate time to point out this feature, Viva Print by Brooklyn-based The Morning News, in which writers and readers of the site share some of their favorite tactile media memories.

Excerpts:

I love the Boston Globe. With far too many friends living in that fair city as opposed to my own, I’m tempted to send them daily updates about all the excellent things going on over there. I learn about the new ballets and seasonal festivities and affordable eateries in Boston sooner than I do the ones here in New York—and without any obligation to attend them all. And though I initially bristled at the switch from “Sidekick” to the newer “g” section, I’ve found it charming and engaging, and the cover illustrations are wicked clever to boot. —Bridget Fitzgerald

My wife and I are sticking with our subscription to the Dallas Morning News. We know the paper’s dying; we’re just not ready to say goodbye. —TMN reader Neil Robinson

The Surfer’s Journal isn’t cheap. However, for those of us who don’t get in the water as often as we’d like, there are pages of lovely photography and a proper grown-up’s reverence for the sport to remind us of what we’re missing. It’d be nice to get better writing on the whole (less the breathy look-at-me style of recent Esquire, more the Plimpton or Thompson-era look-at-that of Sports Illustrated), but that’s not what I buy it for. I buy it because I wish I lived by the beach. I don’t, but this brings me closer. —Rosecrans Baldwin

I think this piece goes a little way towards showing that the appreciation of the written word doesn’t have to die out with the physical manifestations of it; that the internet isn’t all made up of twittering bite-sized information appeteasers fried in flashy slide show, listicle batter, full of quick excitement and light on deep analysis, that fail to provide the same nutritional content as a good old fashioned home-cooked meal. As long as that home cooked meal didn’t contain Hawaiian meatloaf sandwiches, of course.

2 responses to “Viva Boston, Viva print”

Here’s the thing though: I read more newspapers than the average person. Up until last month I purchased The New York Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on an almost daily basis.

If the NYT jumps to $2, I will no longer buy it. And if the Sunday issue increases, which I think it is, I will buy it rarely.

I read some columnist two days ago who wrote, “Well, that’s still cheaper than your morning latte at Starbucks.”

That was probably the most illuminatingly retarded thing that columnist could say. If you’re buying a latte every morning from Starbucks, and you’re not making, like, $100,000 a year… you’re a damned, fucking idiot. Those things are like $3 or $4. That’s insane. If I purchased the NYT every day at $2 a pop, I’m running $40 a month on newspapers WHEN IT’S FREE ONLINE. And I hate reading news online, but I’ll endure that shit if the alternative is paying $40 a month to satisfy my oldster preferences. In college, I paid less than half that. In fact, for $40 a month, I was able to purchase The Washington Post and The New York Times every day and The Wall Street Journal about every other day. For close to $40 a month. It was bliss. Parsons and I each bought our own copies, which we left in a giant pile on the living room carpet. When I moved out at the end of the beginning of the next semester, I hauled out eight garbage bags full of national newspapers. We had so much of it because it was so cheap.

There isn’t a chance I could afford all that information now. Not at $2. Screw it.